Oslo Metropolitan University (OsloMet)
OsloMet is a university with about 20 000 students and 2 100 employees. The study programs
offer education in all three cycles for future professionals within education, health and welfare fields.
As professionals and researchers staff and students meet with children and young people as pupils,
patients, clients, users etc.
One of the responsibilities of society is to make sure that all children and young people have the opportunity to grow up under good conditions. In Norway as well as internationally, governments are concerned with children’s inclusion and right to participation. One precondition in order to accomplish this goal is a good collaboration between the children themselves, their parents, and the various professions that make up the welfare state. More knowledge is needed about the everyday life of children and young people, and their encounters with the professionals of the welfare state. We need knowledge that cuts across the various professions that are concerned with children and young people.
Childlife
Childlife is an interdisciplinary research group which brings together scholars and researchers from different disciplines and professional areas. One goal is to highlight and create conditions for innovative research on and with children and young people. Our priority is on studies which focus on the everyday lives of children and young people in a social, material, institutional, and cultural context, and which encompasses their experiences and perspectives. Our research interest also includes variety and diversity in the lives of children and young people. We furthermore want to create an arena for dialogue, collaboration, and creativity that may stimulate new research and knowledge development. Through our biennial research conferences, we establish international networks, and in cooperation with our international colleagues, we aim to be at the forefront of international research on topics related to the everyday lives of children and young people and their interactions with the various professions of the welfare state. The development of an analytical terminology and of methodological approaches have a high priority, including the development of methods where children and young people, their parents, and the professionals are all involved in the research process.
The members of the Research Group Childlife range from seasoned scholars to young researchers about to embark on their career, such as Ph.D. and postdoctoral fellows. A group of master’s students from the different professional educations are connected to the group as well. Most of our members are involved in the education of those students who will be working professionally with children and young people in the future. Many of them have a strong foundation in the practical fields through a previous or current life in the professions, practice-based research, and supervision of students in practice.
Childlife was one of the instigators and promoters of the transdepartmental education programme INTERACT about interdisciplinary collaboration.
Awarded research group
In the autumn of 2013 a grant was awarded to the research group Childlife – as an interdisciplinary team designated as a particularly strong research group by Oslo and Akershus University College of Applied Sciences. The central aim of the group is investigating key relationships involved in the everyday lives of children from birth to the age of 18 years. Central among these are interactions with different professional practitioners such as kindergarten teachers, primary and lower secondary school teachers, child welfare officers, social workers, physiotherapists, occupational therapists and public health nurses. We are concerned with how social processes such as migration, urbanisation, altered family patterns, increased educational and qualification requirements and various forms of child welfare legislation, influence, and are influenced, by children in the course of their and their families’ everyday lives. Attention will further be given to how materiality and material design influence possibilities for children’s participation in urban spaces and residencies, as well as in professional arenas such as kindergartens, schools, child welfare offices and health centres.
Since 2019, Childlife has had the status of Excellent Academic Environment at the Faculty of Education and International studies.
Conferences
In 2019 we successfully arranged our first international conference. Due to the Covid-19 pandemic
the follow up in 2021 had to be postponed to 2022. The third International Childlife conference will take place in September 2024.
You can read more about this under the Conferences tab.
Head of Research Group
More about the research group
The group’s research portfolio includes studies of girls and boys having diverse ethnic, cultural, social, age-specific backgrounds, as well as differing functional abilities. Intersectionality is a central concept in our investigations and analyses of these and related forms of social diversity. Individual researchers in the group and in interdisciplinary projects are currently investigating childhood experiences. In addition will the group investigate both general cultural and professional understandings of what are troubling or positive health and developmental issues in the lives of children.
Projects
For several years and in various constellations, group members have been cooperating in developing and implementing a variety of studies, network activities and other research-related activities. As a robust research community, we are constantly adding to our project portfolio and networking with other researchers at our own university as well as national and international researchers.
Using our research project portfolio and network as a solid foundation, we are constantly involved in applying for funding from a number of external research organizations and institutions.